Friday, August 8, 2014

UNO Gets $400K National Science Foundation Grant to Fight Cybercrime

The University of New Orleans has received a 3-year $400,000 grant from the National
Science Foundation to develop tools to fight cybercrime in large computing environments.
Researchers at UNO will work in cooperation with researchers at Purdue University
on the project.

The goal of the research is to understand the strategy and detailed steps of a cyber-attack,
collect evidence for possible legal proceedings and reveal hidden impacts of an attack
to minimize loss and to prevent against similar attacks.

Cyber-attacks, especially advanced targeted attacks, pose a significant threat to
the safety and economic well-being of society, according to Golden Richard, professor
of computer science and the grant's principal investigator. This research will help
advance state-of-the-art techniques in cyber forensics, a critical need as the infrastructure
of the United States is increasingly dependent on cyber systems and operations, Richard
said.

The research also improves the pipeline that produces the next generation of cyber-security
experts by deepening students' understanding of advanced real-world cyber-attacks
and cutting-edge forensics capabilities.